


a million little flakes like stars

by metonymy



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Snow Queen Fusion, F/M, Girl Saves Boy, Magical Realism, Snow, Winter, inspired by boston snowpocalypse 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-12 23:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3359048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/pseuds/metonymy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...for some of these pieces were hardly so large as a grain of sand, and they flew about in the wide world, and when they got into people's eyes, there they stayed; and then people saw everything perverted, or only had an eye for that which was evil. This happened because the very smallest bit had the same power which the whole mirror had possessed. Some persons even got a splinter in their heart, and then it made one shudder, for their heart became like a lump of ice."</p>
            </blockquote>





	a million little flakes like stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ness (nessismore)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nessismore/gifts).



The cold in Boston is so pervasive that it has started to filter into the dreams. Ariadne has always been one of those people who feels the cold keenly, wearing a sweater and jeans in warm weather and bundling up in multiple layers in winter until only her eyes peek out from overlapping rounds of scarf and hat. But the office suite they're using for this job is poorly insulated and poorly heated and Ariadne is starting to feel like she'll never be warm again. When she goes under to work on her levels the air is always chill and damp. One time she swears she sees her breath, which is impressive as far as realism goes but is not exactly what she was going for. 

Arthur brings her a space heater, but it makes the glue on her models dry funny so she abandons it in favor of tucking a blanket around her lap and wearing fingerless gloves while she works. The space heater moves to their makeshift lounge, which has the largest windows but also has a sink and a miniature fridge. Ariadne curls around another cup of tea and looks at Arthur silhouetted against the storm outside the window.

"Looks like we might be stuck here tonight," he says, hands in his pockets. He doesn't seem to be affected by the cold at all. Ariadne is starting to hate him for it. Just a little. 

"When this job is over, you're taking me somewhere warm. With fruity drinks with umbrellas in them," she says. Arthur doesn't turn around.

"Sounds like fun. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. But I have something else lined up," he says.

"Wait, what?" Ariadne looks at the line of his back and wishes he would turn around. "You took another job without telling me?"

"Just consulting. It won't take long, and there's no need for an architect." His voice is carefully neutral, his reflection impossible to see clearly from where she's sitting. 

"But you didn't think to give me a heads up?" she asks, trying to keep her voice as calm as his. They've been doing this… thing for a while now, where sometimes they kiss and sometimes they fuck but they still work together and they never talk about feelings. It's confusing, but Arthur is a great collaborator and she knows she's the best architect he's ever worked with so Ariadne is reluctant to try and put words to it. She's always been better with visuals anyway. But it makes moments like this even more frustrating than his usual restraint, when she wants to ask if he feels any obligation to her as a colleague or as anything else. 

"I didn't think you'd be interested," Arthur says flatly, and she's on the verge of responding when there's an especially loud howl of wind and what sounds like something cracking and breaking outside. Ariadne surges to her feet but gets caught up in the blanket and nearly falls over. By the time she's standing up properly Arthur has turned away from the window, rubbing at one eye. 

"Just an icicle falling." He gives her a look that she can't read, and she's aching to ask him what he meant but he just keeps talking. "Let's do one more run-through of the level before we call it a night. I want another look at those streets in the devil's pitchfork. I don't think they actually work."

"What do you mean? You thought they were fine before," Ariadne says, untangling herself from the blanket so she can stand up and follow him to the conference room where the PASIV is set up. 

"I want to see them again," he says, almost petulant. "You can't just assume everything's going to work out, Ariadne, we have to be sure. I can't just trust your flights of fancy will hold up under stress."

"The hell is your problem?" she asks, sitting down on her cot and hooking herself up. "It's fine. It was fine before. It'll be fine now." She knows she shouldn't go under when she's like this, but Arthur's already lying back, and her piqued pride insists that she prove that her design is just as sound as it was that afternoon.

The plunger goes down, there's a hiss, and --

\-- Ariadne is used to the disorientation by now, the transition from horizontal to upright and walking, the shift in her body's weight having happened without her knowledge. But the street they're walking down isn't the friendly open boulevard she designed. Everything seems crooked somehow, the windows dark and the trees bare and empty, and snow skirls through the air against a featureless gray sky.

"Something's wrong," Arthur says beside her, his overcoat tight against him. His throat is bare, exposed, almost raw-looking in this unearthly light. 

"Here," she says without thinking, unwinding her scarf and tossing it over his shoulders. Arthur looks down at it. 

"We're dreaming. This is ridiculous." 

"Keep it anyway," Ariadne says, turning away from the crimson and gold loops of wool around his neck. Apparently her peace offering wasn't appreciated. She hunches up her own collar, looking down the street, and she sees -

"Arthur, what the hell are your projections doing here?"

They're not normal projections, though. The proportions are off, and they're all bent over as if fighting the wind. As they get closer they look like they're still far away - and then Ariadne realizes they're actually quite small, not far away,and they're coming closer.

"Arthur?" she asks again, turning back to him. Arthur's frowning intensely, his eyes squinting up the street. 

"They shouldn't be here. I thought I was suppressing them - what is wrong with them? What did you do, Ariadne?"

"What did I do? What did you do? They're your projections!" When she turns to look back up the street there is something huge rounding the corner, something white and shining and wrong against the darkened street. 

It's a sleigh, being pulled by creatures with taloned feet and beaks and wings. Arthur never dreams animals, and Ariadne knows in her bones she did not pull this in. The snow, yes, but not this construct. Something is wrong, something far beyond either of them. 

Inside the sleigh is a woman, slender and wrapped in white, her eyes dark and hair a wild tangle above the furs around her. The snow whirls around her in a lacy cloud. 

Arthur has a gun in his hands, pointed right at the woman's face. "You can't be here," he snarls, eyes narrowed against the cold. Ariadne tries to dream up a gun as well, but when she raises her hand all she sees is a knife, pale and milky like an icicle. 

The woman laughs, bending forward. "Arthur, you knew I would come for you," she purrs, and her accent makes it all lock into place, and Ariadne shivers hard. How is Mal here? Why is Mal dressed in white and riding in a sleigh and smiling at Arthur with thin blue lips?

Arthur's hand falls as the snow blows towards him with the shade's words, the gun dropping from slack fingers. It hits the street and shatters into shards of ice. Ariadne takes a step towards him but he's already walking towards the sleigh.

"What are you doing to him?" Ariadne asks. The wind steals the words from her mouth, blowing snow into her eyes, and she throws up her arm to shield her face. Her skin feels raw and bleeding as she lowers her arm. And Arthur is standing at the edge of the sleigh, his face as dark as storm cloud, Mal reaching towards him with a hand like moonlight. 

"Arthur! Arthur, what are you doing?" Ariadne screams, trying to be heard over the howling wind. Mal looks at her and smiles.

"He has come to me, as he always wanted," Mal says, her voice still seductive and quiet and cutting through the turbulent air. "He seeks my darkness. He loves the cold, does he not? And you, little girl with your little toys… you would freeze if you tried to touch him."

Mal gestures and the snow halts, then flings itself at Ariadne, turning to tiny daggers in the air, and Ariadne throws herself to the ground. When she looks up Arthur is a dark smudge against the sleigh as it careens around the corner.

They can't be going that fast. And this is the middle leg of the devil's pitchfork, and it should loop right around on itself and send the sleigh hurtling back towards her. But when she stumbles to her feet and around the corner they're gone, and the street stretches on, empty.

This is wrong, she tells herself. She should wake herself up, kick out of the dream. Clearly they got a bad batch of somnacin and she should wake up before it does any more damage and get Arthur to wake up too.  
She closes her eyes and opens them again and she's standing atop the tallest building in this dreamscape, the projections starting to flock to the bottom like those beasts that were drawing the sleigh. 

Ariadne falls --

\-- and gasps awake, coughing on the freezing air. The room is cold, so cold her breath is misting in front of her, even though the windows are shut and the snow piling up outside. Her totem is chilly to the touch but it insists that this is reality, that she is awake.

Something is very wrong. She turns to Arthur - and that's wrong too, he should have shot himself out by now, but he lies there with his skin a waxy and unnatural shade of grey. He looks too young when he sleeps like this. And his lips are turning blue. 

Ariadne slaps him experimentally but he doesn't wake. No surprise there. If something's gone wrong with the PASIV, or the somnacin - but Arthur meticulously maintains the device, and this is standard and legal somnacin purchased through a medical supplier. She reaches under the cot Arthur lies on and tips it over, but even as he tumbles to the ground he stays asleep.

Ariadne does the only thing she can think of to do. She makes sure he's lying more or less comfortably and tucks her blanket around him and lies down beside him on the floor and plugs herself back in.

She closes her eyes and --

\-- the street is empty now, with chittering noises that might be leaves blowing against the pavement or animals scurrying for shelter. No projections that she can see. No sleigh. No Arthur.

That sense of wrong is tugging at the pit of her stomach now, rising up the back of her throat, and her numbed fingers curl around her totem in her pocket. The metal is strangely warm against her skin. She wonders what Arthur would have to say about that. 

She'll simply have to find him and ask. 

There is a forest at the end of the street, the road disappearing under the shadow of the trees and the pavement covered in soft powdery snow. Ariadne built this dream. She knows every inch of it, placed every lamppost and filled in every last brick and paving stone. There should be no forest at all. 

The symbolism of it is a bit heavy-handed, she thinks, frowning as she starts down the path. Is this Arthur's addition, holding the dream while she was briefly awake? At least it's not a literal labyrinth. That would be entirely too much. 

The lampposts appear to have survived the transition, though they are surrounded by trees now. Shadows like cracks in a mirror spread across the path. As the snow gets deeper the marks of the sleigh's runners appear, carving parallel lines through the shadows, and Ariadne cannot think of anything other than to follow them. Perhaps she's walking into a trap. She would walk into worse than this for Arthur. 

Ariadne doesn't dwell on what that fact means. It's pointless if he's lost somewhere inside his own head. And she's going to get him back. 

She trudges through the snow, thankful that her dream-self is wearing the same sturdy and waterproof boots she has in reality. Arthur looked askance at them, possibly because they were actually boys' snow boots, but right now they're keeping her feet from freezing and falling off. The wind has died down from the first dream. It's quiet except for the scuffing of her boots in the snow and the soft swish of her sleeves against her coat. She seems to walk for ages, but it's hard to tell inside the dream with the time dilation, and the sky never gets any lighter or darker. The streetlights never go out over her head. And she doesn't find her own footprints at any point, so she's not going in a loop. 

She starts singing inside her head, her favorite songs, reciting the lyrics to pass the time. She tries to remember as much of Picaresque and The Crane Wife as she can, start to finish. Gradually she becomes aware of the sound of something beside her own movements. For a moment Ariadne thinks it's the wind again before she realizes it's a different noise, lower, more liquid.

The trees thin out, the lampposts and the tracks disappearing. A river cuts through the snow. Broken chunks of ice bob in the water, as if something has just cut through a frozen covering. There's no path on the opposite side, no sleigh tracks to follow there. Which means they took the river. Arthur's mind has always been one of logical planning, of the shortest possible routes, of elegant solutions rather than baroque fantasies. Ariadne might have built this dream but he's shaping it now, and he was always terrible at building mazes. So it should be easy enough to follow them.

Of course, he didn't leave her a boat, which would have been more useful. Ariadne reaches in her pockets and finds only the totem; she can't wish an entire boat into being when she doesn't know what else Arthur's mind might throw up, and she doesn't want to be torn apart by a horde of shades. So she goes back up to the trees and scrabbles around under the snow till she finds a leaf and blows it onto the water, and it spins around until it's the size of a canoe. It rocks alarmingly when she climbs in but it holds her weight. And as soon as she's inside the current catches and the leaf bobs along down the river. 

The sky lightens as she goes, still gray but not as dark, the chunks of ice shrinking and slipping under the wavelets. Ariadne watches the trees on either side in their ranks and sees the green fuzz of leaf buds begin to halo their tops. This should probably make her feel better. It doesn't. It feels dangerous, like the dream is lulling her into a false sense of security. Or like she's getting further and further behind. 

The leaf drifts to the side of the river and a pier unfurls, the wood curled like a vine. Ariadne is aware she's being led, but she can't think of what else to do before the little leaf-boat is sinking beneath her. She leaps to the pier and scrabbles up it, sitting down on the grassy bank and breathing hard, taking a moment to look around her.

A narrow path leads away from the pier to a beautiful garden surrounding a snug little cottage. At least it doesn't appear to be made of gingerbread, just wood and a thatched roof and cheery yellow paint. Which makes it look all the more menacing, of course. But the trees grow in close ranks around the low fence and the gate of the garden is already swinging open. 

Ariadne should probably be running away screaming. But her curiosity is, as ever, getting the better of her. What would a garden look like, in Arthur's mind?

The ordered rows don't surprise her, or the neat path down the center. The profusion of flowers she can't even name are more surprising, though. There are some she recognizes, of course, and topiaries sculpted into geometric shapes, but there are some that she's never seen before. The wind here is a gentle breeze wafting against her face. No scents, though. Smell is tricky in dreams, and Arthur's never been particularly good at it.

 _....never good enough,_ she hears, and Ariadne whips around. Nobody is behind her. But she hears another whisper, _must be useful,_ and then _nobody without the job,_ and she realizes she's spinning in circles. There's nobody here besides her. Just the voices hissing out fear and inadequacy and damage. Is this what Arthur thinks about himself?

"He's afraid," says a child's voice, quite close to her. She jumps, then peers closer. It's a white rose, and it's talking to her. Sure. This is a dream. Why not?

"Afraid of what?" Ariadne asks, trying to see if there are features tucked among the petals. 

"Of everything," the flower says sagely. "He knows what happens to dreamers. He knows what happens to dreamers when they fall in love. Or maybe it was what happens to lovers when they dream. That's why he went with her, you know."

Ariadne feels a chill down her spine in spite of the warmth of the garden. "I think I need to find him soon, then," she says. "Can you tell me which way to go?"

"Through the garden," the rose sing-songs, "out the back and down the path and run, run from the robbers and the queen and into the midnight sun. Here, you should take these. In case you need a bit of sunshine, in case the sun stops shining for you." Ariadne reaches out and a handful of seeds drop into her palm. That makes as much sense as anything else that's happened, so she puts the seeds in her pocket and straightens up. 

"Thank you," she says finally, but the rose is humming to itself and she's starting to hear the whispers of the other flowers and they're whispering about the Cobbs and danger and love and regret, and Ariadne does not want to stay here anymore. She hurries down the path to the back gate. It stays closed when she touches it, so she clambers over the fence just to the side and makes the little jump from the top rail to the road that's reappeared on the other side. 

The snow comes back sooner than she would have liked and Ariadne starts growing cold again even sooner than that. But she keeps the memory of the garden in her mind even as the sky grows gray and dim again. She can't help feeling like she's found a secret she wasn't meant to know. In their line of work, where secrets are the very currency they trade in, she should probably not feel guilty about it. But this is Arthur. She trusts him with her mind and her life. She might want to strip away his armor and peel off every last layer of those damned suits, but she wants him to want her to do it. She wants his secrets from his mouth, not the sides of his subconscious.

Too late now, she supposes. All she can do is hope to find him and pull him out of this nightmare and see what he says when they're awake. And maybe convince him that he's wrong about himself. After getting through this snow, anything will seem easy. 

Ariadne follows the road, though there are no sleigh tracks this time. But a singing flower told her it was the way to go, and that makes as much sense as anything else this time. Part of her wishes more dreams could be built like this, that she wasn't constrained to hotels and offices and modern cities. She's always thought Arthur would object to her more fanciful flights of whimsy - but if he has this locked inside his head, maybe he'd be more amenable to the suggestion. 

Vague plans of hedge mazes and gardens where the flowers mask the twistings and turnings of the paths are filling her head when Ariadne realizes she hears hoofbeats. Which she shouldn't be able to hear on the snow. She fumbles in her pockets - she has the totem and the seeds and neither of them seem appropriate to defend herself - and tries to dream herself a weapon to prepare for an attack.

They're not quite horses and not quite deer, the pack of constructs that descends out of the woods, and the figures on their back are not quite men. The projections are still dressed in the office wear that Arthur's mind usually supplies, but the blazers and skirts and trousers are all tattered, and the faces above the torn collars are too sharp and canine to be truly human. 

"What do you want?" she asks. Maybe it's another riddle, maybe she can bargain her way out. 

"Anything of value," one of them sneers, giving her a calculating look. "Which can't be much."

Ariadne is not going to let her pride be injured by a fox-faced projection. Besides, she's not giving them the totem and she's not sure what the hell she can do with a handful of flower seeds when the projections have circled around her. 

"Well, I have my mind, but you're sure as hell not getting that. So it looks like you're out of luck," she says, raising her chin in a bold challenge.

A laugh floats up from the back of the group, musical like an arpeggio on a violin, and the projections part. The beast that comes through must be a reindeer. And on its back…

"Mal?" Ariadne breathes. But this projection is bright-eyed and merry, dressed in layers of warm leather and fur, and she smiles at Ariadne as the reindeer stops.

"You are brave, child. And funny." She gives Ariadne a sly look. "No wonder he likes you."

"How can you be here?" Ariadne asks, pulling her coat tighter around herself, bracing herself even now for a sudden blade between her ribs. "I thought - the other one, she was…"

"He remembers what I became, in Cobb's mind," Mal says with a shrug. "But he also remembers me as I was. As his friend. We were great friends, you know."

Ariadne doesn't really know, but she remembers Arthur telling her that Mal was lovely, and he was never the sort of man to use words lightly. "Yeah. He misses you, I think."

Mal's smile turns soft and sad, those enormous, beautiful eyes dimmed with sympathy and sorrow. "He misses a great deal, our Arthur. Locked away behind those walls, no? I used to tell him he needed to relax, but he never listens." Ariadne finds herself smiling and shaking her head. Mal grins. "I see you sense that too. You are more valuable than you know, Ariadne."

Ariadne is pretty sure she has a handle on her own worth, but Arthur's appreciation is a far more complicated thing. "I just want him to know he's valuable too," she says finally. "That he matters. To me."

Mal laughs again. "Well, then. Perhaps we should take you to him, so he can hear it from your lips, no? Come, come here." The reindeer steps closer and Mal reaches down, and no sooner has Ariadne taken her hand than she finds herself pulled up and landing on the back of the beast behind Mal. There's no real saddle, nowhere to hang on, so Ariadne wraps her arms around Mal's waist.

Mal lets out a cry, high and wild and ringing a clarion call, and the whole band of them wheels and sets off down the road. They're moving faster than Ariadne could walk - faster than they should be able to run, the path disappearing under the reindeer's hooves with unearthly speed. But it's a dream, and she's riding a reindeer and hanging onto a projection of a dead woman while fox creatures ride beasts through the woods beside them. Why not travel faster?

Above the woods, she sees the sky lightening by degrees, the gray turning to the blank eggshell white of a coming blizzard. The wind scours her face and she ducks against Mal's back, burrowing into the fur-lined hood that's fallen down from the shade's head, trusting this strange company to take her where she needs to be. Ariadne realizes she can hear humming - no, it's singing. Mal is singing as she rides.

" _Non, rien de rien… non, je ne regrette rien…_ "

It should probably frighten her, Ariadne thinks, but the voice is the warmest thing in the world right now. And Arthur doesn't use that song as a kick anymore. 

The song doesn't seem to end. Or maybe it just flows into other songs, other melodies, and then it's just a strange sound like the singing of the sky and the trees itself. And then everything stops. Ariadne slams into Mal's back with such force that she rebounds and almost falls off, but a hand at her belt keeps her on the reindeer.

"We are here," Mal says, and Ariadne looks up to find that they're at the edge of the forest, and a broad plain of snow rises before them and slopes gently up to a castle. It looks like a forest of icicles pointing the wrong way up, towers that don't look built so much as accreted, rings on rings of cold liquid locked in place. It does not look like a place where anything lives. 

"It looks far," Ariadne says feebly. 

"Yes, but we can go no further." Mal turns in her seat and helps Ariadne down, catching her when she stumbles on stiff legs. The shade leans down and kisses her forehead. "Do give Arthur my love." 

Ariadne nods, though privately she doesn't think she'll be able to do that for a while even if she does find him, and steps away from the reindeer. Mal lets out another one of those wild cries and the whole band of projections turns and runs back into the forest.

It's silent again. The snow starts to fall, and Ariadne pulls up her own hood and hunches her shoulders and walks. The only color she can see is that of her own clothing - her red coat, her rainbow mittens that Arthur can't stand, her brown boots shuffling and sliding through the snow. The castle doesn't seem to be getting any closer for a long time, but gradually she sees something start to rise in front of it. And then she realizes - it's not a wall, it's a rank of guards coming towards her. Too far to see at this point other than figures of white and pale blue like snow-shadows. Castle guards. Of course.

You don't get me, she thinks, and digs in her pockets again. Just the seeds and her totem - and she falls to her knees and starts molding the snow between her hands. The snow that's falling is powdery but she forces the stuff at her feet to be dense and packable, to hold the shapes she gives it, to bear its own weight as she hastily scoops and molds and rolls. 

Ariadne glances up and sees the guards coming closer, all sharp lines and angles and bare sketches of limbs and eyes and jagged shards of ice in their hands. But it's too late, she's done, she stumbles back behind the ranks of snowy chessmen she's just built. They're only barely recognizable, but it's enough. 

The pawns are the first to move, wriggling free of their bases and bounding forward, growing as they go and rolling between the guards and tripping them up. Then the pieces start to go, the knights charging in silence, the rooks bullying their way through the ranks, the trusty bishop carving diagonal swaths through the mass. And the queen skirts round the edges, hectoring the guards till the king crashes into the middle of the troop. With every impact a little of the snow wears away and the guards lose their edges and crack and splinter, until there's nothing left but a swirling mass of snow and ice that fills the air. 

The miniature storm doesn't seem to be solid, so Ariadne tucks her chin into her collar and puts her head down and charges right through the middle of it. The snow and sleet are so thick she can barely breathe, catching gasps between ducking her face into the wool of her coat, and her eyes are streaming with cold and flakes melting on her lashes. It's not just the remains of the guards and chessmen, the storm is getting worse above her as the ground starts to slope upwards, the snow reaching past her boots and almost up to her knees, the wind blowing so fiercely she has to lean into it to move forward. Ariadne slogs through it, refusing to stop, refusing to let this storm beat her, just picking up one foot and then the other.

The wind stops. The snow ceases. She looks up.

She's nearly in front of the castle gates now. The clouds seem to have fallen out of the sky with the snow to reveal a night-blue sky with a sun dipping just over the horizon. Streamers of green and red arc across the sky, almost crackling as they waver and billow.

The dark shade is there, furs gone, her gown frost and crystal and ice, her eyes cold with fury. 

"You came further than I thought you would," she says carelessly, with an air of faint surprise. "He thought you would give up long before now. He knows how weak you really are. He knows he's not worth saving."

Ariadne scrambles up the wall of snow, feeling it slip and compress and crumble beneath her, but she's moving fast enough that she's making progress. "I'm not going to let him be trapped in his own mind by you. You're just a projection. An infection from Cobb. This isn't real. You're not real. And none of what you say is real. He knows I don't think that." She's done this before. She can do this again.

"Ah, but you do not know," the shade says, eyes glittering like the beads on her gown. "The splinter in his eye does not freeze his heart. His heart is already frozen, and attracts the splinter like a magnet. He would not be lost now if there were not already a core of ice within him."

Ariadne remembers Arthur's hands warm against her wrist when she woke up from her first death in a dream; she remembers his lips against hers in the middle of the Fischer job and the way she could see his pulse jump in his throat just above his collar; she remembers the sound of his voice hot against her ear as he pulsed inside her, mouth dragging over her skin; she remembers his face beside hers on a pillow and his features relaxed into a sleepy smile; she remembers his eyes warm on hers this morning and every morning when he brings her a coffee and asks what she has for him today.

"Bullshit," she says, and pulls the flower seeds out of her pocket and throws them in the shade's face.

The seeds explode into a riot of colors and the shade howls. Stinging snow bursts outwards with a furious screech and Ariadne flings herself to the ground. When she looks back there's nothing there - no shade, no blood, no seeds. Just a few petals, scattering in the dying wind.

The castle still rises up in front of her. It's not over yet. Ariadne drags herself through the snowdrift and onto the flat plain and lies there for a moment, catching her breath, before hauling herself to her feet and staggering through the gates. 

There are no doors here, the air quiet and still and cold as the inside of a meat locker, the walls smooth and rippling ice in every shade from milky white to glacier blue. The floor is etched with the delicate tracery of patterned frost. It would be beautiful if she had any time to stop and look at it. But now that she's so close Ariadne can feel an urgent pull, like there's a hook set into her heart tugging her on, and she can't pause. She has to find Arthur. She has to make them both wake up. And then maybe she can finally get warm again.

She walks through an empty banquet hall, with crystalline plates and goblets that will never be filled; she passes through a garden of frosted ferns and snowdrops and wintergreen bushes; she sees a room with transparent instruments waiting with shiver-thin strings that lie perfectly quiet.

Finally she passes through a great arched doorway to a room with a throne, all angles and points and fractal fragments of snowflakes. And in front of the throne is Arthur, sitting on the floor with a box in front of him. 

Ariadne stumbles to him on feet that feel like blocks of ice, finally falling to her knees beside him. He's pushing around fragments on the top of the box, which is just thick enough to be opaque. The pieces are clear and jagged and could be ice or broken glass. In this place, both seem equally dangerous. 

"They won't fit," he tells her, not looking up. "I thought I had it, but it won't come out right." His coat and gloves are gone, and that bothers her. It bothers her more that he doesn't seem to be cold. Has this place really frozen him? Did the ice consume him from the inside out? Is he moving more slowly?

Ariadne rips off a mitten and reaches over to touch the back of his hand; it's cold but it still feels like skin over bone. He pauses in his ceaseless efforts with the pieces. 

"What's inside, Arthur?" she asks. "What do you need to open it up?"

He looks up at her, surprised. "Not to open it. To lock it." 

That makes her catch her breath, just like the weight of his gaze still does when she's not careful, but the air is so cold she starts coughing. Arthur pushes the box aside and puts a hand on her back, like he can't stop himself from trying to help her. But when she turns towards him he shies away. 

"What are you locking away?" she asks instead, reaching for the box. He starts to protest but she's faster than he is, catching him off guard and flipping the lid and scattering the shards from the top all over the floor.

Inside the box is a pile of gold and crimson yarn. Her scarf, a little frayed at the edges, some of the knots of fringe coming undone. And nestled in the center is a ruby red die.

"Your totem?" she says, tongue thick and numb in her mouth. "Why?" She'd told him what really happened to Mal, what she'd done in Limbo, how Cobb had tried to get her to wake up. Ariadne stares at Arthur's totem and resists the urge to reach for it and resists the urge to cry or scream.

"It was safer there," he says finally, flatly, his voice quiet and small. "It was safer for me to be here. To be far away from you."

"From me? You think I'm dangerous?" Ariadne is trying not to get hysterical but it's difficult. Arthur snaps his gaze up to hers, brow furrowed in confusion. And anger.

"I'm dangerous, Ariadne. I'm nothing but a dream thief and I'm nothing but the job, and you've seen what love does to dreamers. You know what could happen to us. To you. I can't let that happen to you."

"You're an asshole," she replies, reaching towards his face with her mittened hand. He bats it aside. "You don't get to decide that for me. I'm the one who decided to stay in the business, Arthur. I get to decide if I love you."

"I can't," he says. "You can't. You can't mean that." He looks perplexed and furious and lost, and she catches his hand in both of hers, the wool and her fingers clasping him tight. 

"You wouldn't have brought me here if you didn't want me to hear it." She scoots closer across the icy floor, her ass already numb, her whole body starting to freeze, but she ignores it because she has Arthur's eyes on her. "We can quit the business. We can take the PASIV and go figure out another way to use dreamshare. Or we can throw the PASIV in a fucking dumpster and get normal jobs and you can take up skydiving to get your adrenaline rush. I don't care, Arthur. I just want you to wake up and come back with me. I love you. Please, Arthur."

"Ariadne," he breathes. He leans forward. "What did you say?" His eyes are filling with tears. She's never seen him cry before. It's terrifying. But she refuses to let go of his hand. 

"I love you, you idiot," she says, starting to smile in spite of herself, because this is crazy and they're inside an ice castle and Arthur has pressed his forehead to hers and his breath is warm against her mouth. 

"I love you too," he says.

There is a tremendous groaning noise, a thundering boom and a crack so loud she shrieks before she can stop herself. Arthur snatches the die out of the box and flings his arm around her and the floor splits open beneath them and they are falling into the darkness and --

\-- Ariadne gasps awake, five heartbeats passing before she manages to sit up. Her fingers and toes are tingling, prickling with returning sensation, and her clothes all seem to be damp. The carpet is damp around them too, the blanket tucked around Arthur heavy and wet to the touch. But the air is warm. She can't see the clouds of breath in the air between them.

Arthur is looking up at her, his expression exhausted but relieved.

"Ariadne," he croaks. "Say it again?"

"You're an idiot," she says, flinging the blanket aside and lying down next to him on the grimy office carpet. "And I love you."

There are tears on his face. "I love you."

Something gleams silver on his cheek, just for a moment. She brushes it aside with clumsy fingers and leans down to kiss him. His mouth tastes of salt. And Arthur kisses her and kisses her and kisses her, hands bracketing her face and holding her close, and Ariadne finally, finally feels warm all the way through.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Nessismore, to whom I have owed a fairy tale for years and who suggested the Snow Queen as a fusion. Yes, the actual writing is inspired in large part by the 70 inches of snow Boston has received in the past month. I make no apologies. Thanks to Josie and @alierakieron for the betas.


End file.
